August eBulletin 2011

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For other stories from Alliance posted since the last eBulletin was published on 1 July, go to Latest from Alliance.

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Feature

Interview - Svati Bhogle

Is holding competitions and giving awards an effective strategy for grantmakers? What happens to award winners further down the line? Caroline Hartnell spoke to Svati Bhogle, secretary of the non-profit TIDE India and founder and CEO of its profit-making sister company Sustaintech, about how the business has developed since winning the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2008 and how her own confidence has grown. She also spoke to Anne Wheldon, senior adviser to the Ashden Awards, about what they look for in applications, and what makes winners stand out from the rest.

Click here to read the interview in full.

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News from around the world

BAIN Indian philanthropy poised for take-off?

Private giving in India totals between 0.3 per cent and 0.4 per cent of GDP, according to Bain & Co’s Indian Philanthropy Report 2011, but, according to the authors, this is set to rise. While the figure is a long way behind charitable giving in developed countries (in the US, for example, private giving accounted for 2.2 per cent of the GDP in 2009, and in the UK, it was 1.3 per cent in 2010), it puts India at the head of other developing economies like China and Brazil. The chief reason for the disparity appears to be that individual donations in India constitute only 26 per cent of all private charitable contributions, while in the US the figure is 75 per cent and in the UK 60 per cent.

This could be about to change, estimates Bain. For one thing, the trend is an upward one. The report estimates private charitable giving at between $5 billion and $6 billion, almost tripling from $2 billion in 2006. The number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in India is growing at a faster rate than anywhere in the world and a younger generation of HNWIs is more interested and involved in philanthropy. As an index of potential growth, more than 40 per cent of the wealthy individuals Bain surveyed expect to increase their contributions in the next five years. In addition, there is increasing media awareness of philanthropy and support networks and foundations are growing in scale, allowing them to put more funds to work more efficiently. Corporate giving is also on the increase, adding up to an estimated $1.5 billion, a more than five-fold increase since 2006. The barriers to a sharp increase in Indian philanthropy appear to be the opacity of the operations of many NGOs in India and an uncongenial fiscal regime. More than 60 per cent of those Bain surveyed said the two biggest constraints are lack of accountability and transparency in some charitable organizations and tax laws that deter giving.

In a related development, the Centre for Advancement for Philanthropy and Samhita recently organized a Philanthropy Leadership Confluence in Mumbai, a putative network for individual donors, foundations and sector intermediaries.

For more information
www.bain.com/publications/articles/india-philanthropy-report-2011.aspx
IJCSL Newsletter, June-July 2011
Read Alliance’s conference report.

Sceptical but optimistic – Gates’ attitude to Grand Challenges Explorations

As a next stage of the Gates Grand Challenges Explorations programme, 12 researchers or teams of researchers are to get an additional $1 million over the next five years to develop their ideas. The initial round provided seed money to around 500 ideas, and these 12 are the successful ‘graduates’. Among the ideas featured are the use of microwaves to kill malaria parasites and developing a way to give foetuses immunity to HIV. ‘They run against conventional wisdom,’ said Chris Wilson, director of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery programme, acknowledging that, ‘more often than not, conventional wisdom is right’.’ For example, the idea of using microwaves to kill malaria parasites from within their hosts is ‘probably not going to work’,’ he conceded, but added: ‘Science is a place where lots of things don't work … I think we're cautiously optimistic that somewhere along this path, some of these might happen.’

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $3 million to the Bihar Evaluation of Social Franchising and Telemedicine (BEST). The study will assess the impact of the World Health Partners’ (WHP) telemedicine and social franchising programme on the outcomes associated with four priority diseases in 12 districts in Bihar: childhood diarrhoea, childhood pneumonia, tuberculosis and visceral leishmaniasis. The study will involve collecting of data from more than 100,000 households over the next four years. Under the programme, networks of private sector practitioners treat and refer cases, but they may have minimal medical training and use the telemedicine approach – sharing patient data such as blood pressure or heart rate with a consulting physician using the internet. Physicians can also be consulted via webcam on the diagnosis and treatment of a patient. ‘Social franchising has received a lot of attention as a potential service delivery mechanism in the health sector,’ said Manoj Mohanan of Duke University, who is leading the research. ‘However, due to factors such as challenges with design issues and funding limitations, there have been no large-scale experimental evaluations of these programmes.’

For more information on Grand Challenges
www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OEPP9O2.htm

Source for BEST
PNNOnline, 8 July 2011

Irish diaspora philanthropists dig deep – and quickly – for Ireland’s charities

A campaign to raise €70 million (£63 million) by 2014 for Ireland’s charities from philanthropists around the world with Irish connections has already raised around three-quarters of that sum – €50 million (£45 million) – at the mid-point of the campaign. The Ireland Funds charitable foundation, which launched the appeal, was set up in 1976. It distributes money to charitable organizations across Ireland, including Habitat for Humanity, the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, Samaritans and Barnardo’s. Last year it donated €28 million (£25 million).

Source
PhilanthropyUK, 30 June 2011

‘Demand-led’ DfID fund will put up £30 million in matching funds for international appeals

The UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) has launched a £30 million fund that will match public donations to fundraising appeals for international development causes. Charities will be able to apply for up to £5 million for poverty reduction schemes under the UK Aid Match fund.

Applications can be made by any not-for-profit organization, or by an organization publicizing an appeal for such organizations, such as a newspaper. DfID calls UK Aid Match ‘demand-led’ and, according to Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, the fund will allow direct public choice in expenditure of at least part of the aid budget. ‘By match-funding public donations to development appeals, the government will recognize the public's choice by directing funds from the aid budget to the international development organizations they support,’ he said. Deadlines for applications to the fund end in June 2012.

Source
Third Sector Online, 30 June 2011

For more information
www.dfid.gov.uk

Credit D B King CGI America meeting to benefit 2.7 million Americans

Former President Bill Clinton (pictured) announced, on the final day of June’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America meeting, that commitments launched during the event will create or fill more than 124,000 jobs, provide more than 364,000 people with access to job training, and support entrepreneurs with $265 million in investments or loans. The meeting is the first CGI event focused entirely on the USA. Fifty-one commitments were announced over the course of the two-day conference which, said the former president, ‘will improve the lives of 2.7 million people in the United States’.

For more information
http://press.clintonglobalinitiative.org/press_releases/president-clinto...

Beyond_boundaries Despite recession, US overseas giving up among companies and individuals

US giving to international causes grew 6.2 per cent in 2009, but in fact, says a new report, this figure represents something of a slow-down since giving to international causes has grown at an average annual rate of 10.4 per cent since 1987. Moving Beyond Boundaries, compiled by Global Impact, finds that 22 per cent of US households make donations to international charities, and that 37 per cent of major US companies plan to increase their funding focus on international issues and causes. According to the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, aggregate international corporate giving grew to $2.72 million in 2009 from $2.37 million in 2008 despite the economic downturn.

Source
Philanthropy Journal, 7 July 2011

Investor_perspectives Social investment too dependent on government and philanthropic funds, says UK report

The social investment sector must introduce new investment mechanisms if it wants to attract more money, says a new report from social enterprise consultancy ClearlySo. According to the report, 96 per cent of all social investment last year came from 10 organizations, and only £190 million was invested in social enterprise. ‘The sector has been heavily dependent on government and philanthropy, and these need reinforcement,’ says Investor Perspectives on Social Investment Financing. ‘The global pools of capital which operate out of the City of London could provide exactly that.’ However, before this can happen, products that offer near-market returns, are easily traded or sold, and are relatively low-risk need to be developed, it says. The report adds that institutional investors also want products with a robust measurement of social return, larger investment opportunities, and products and managers with a proven track record, but few investments of this type are available.

Source
Third Sector Online. 13 July 2011

To download
http://217.154.230.218/NR/rdonlyres/1FC8B9A1-6DE2-495F-9284-C3CC1CFB706D...

Funders’ website launched in UK

A knowledge-sharing website for funders has been launched on a trial basis in the UK. Supported by a number of organizations including City Bridge Trust, New Philanthropy Capital, the Association of Charitable Foundations, the Baring Foundation and the Big Lottery Fund, Knowledge Sharing aims to help funders make more effective funding decisions by making sure that, in the words of the site’s editor Kimberly Harwood, ‘the best approaches are adopted, efforts are not duplicated and mistakes are not repeated’. The pilot phase will run for six months and the site will be formally launched following its evaluation.

Source
PhilanthropyUK, 15 July 2011

For more information
http://fundernetwork.org.uk

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International development

2011 MDG report upbeat despite mixed progress

Not surprisingly, the latest UN Millennium Development Goals report, released last month, reveals mixed results and has met with a varied reception. Most regions have made progress towards the goal of halving extreme poverty – according to the UN yardstick, the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day – but not always fast enough to meet the target by the designated date of 2015. Between 1990 and 2005, East Asia (largely thanks to the development of China) already exceeded the target, having reduced the percentage of those living below the extreme poverty line from 60 to 16 per cent. Likewise, South East Asia has reduced the percentage from 39 to 19. However, the Sub-Saharan Africa (58 to 51 per cent) and the Caribbean (29 to 26 per cent) are lagging behind and, as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon concedes in his foreword, ‘progress tends to bypass those who are lowest on the economic ladder or are otherwise disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability or ethnicity. Disparities between urban and rural areas are also pronounced and daunting.’

The report remains optimistic, though. ‘India,’ it asserts, ‘has also contributed to the large reduction in global poverty’,’ with poverty rates projected to fall from 51 per cent in 1990 to about 22 per cent by the target date of 2015. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, ‘projections … are slightly more upbeat than previously estimated,’ with recent economic growth and forecasted trends suggesting that the region’s extreme poverty rate will fall below 36 per cent by 2015.

Credit Stacey Haga However, another report from Global Campaign for Education (GCE) and RESULTS casts doubt on poorer countries’ ability to meet the goal of universal primary education. Despite improved enrolment rates, says Make It Right: Ending the Crisis in Girls’ Education, girls remain more likely than boys to be forced out again. In some parts of the world only one girl in ten will complete primary school, for reasons that include work, caring for a sick family member and early marriage. The report says that the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan are among those countries failing to respect girls’ rights to an education. In Sub-Saharan Africa, girls have less than a 50 per cent chance of finishing primary school. In some Asian countries girls also struggle: 41 per cent of girls in Pakistan and 30 per cent in India fail to finish primary school.

What the UN report also tacitly acknowledges, say critics, is that despite the UN’s insistence on increased development aid, the main motive force behind poverty reduction is wealth creation. Sub-Saharan Africa, points out a Canadian commentator, one of the most laggardly performers in the UN’s extreme poverty index, has been ‘the world’s biggest per capita recipient of overseas development aid'.

For more information
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/11_MDG%20Report_EN.pdf
National Post, Canada, 8 July 2011
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1107/S00254/poor-countries-failing-to-get-fema...

Call to reaffirm rights-based approaches as drive for efficiency takes hold

Meanwhile, says a recent issue of Contestations, human rights – including women’s rights – are dropping off the donor agenda. The author, Rosalind Eyben of the Institute of Development Studies, quotes a recent off-the-record remark of a UN official to this effect: ‘Give it another two years, and they [human rights] will have completely disappeared.’ She deplores what she sees as the move away from rights-based approaches in funding women’s programmes to an emphasis on economics: ‘Women’s and girls’ well-being was an end in itself [in the 1990s]. Today, it is all about calculating the rates of return from investing in a person as if she were a piece of machinery.’ She sees the Nike Foundation’s ‘Girl Effect’ theme of ‘stopping poverty before it starts’ by ‘investing in girls’ as epitomizing this tendency – an approach, she says, ‘that entirely ignores the historically derived structural inequities that are keeping many millions of girls [and boys!] in conditions of poverty’.

Another result of the quest for efficiency is the development of an audit culture that dominates development initiatives. She argues, quoting the former head of USAID, ‘those development projects that are most precisely and easily measured are the least transformational, and those projects that are most transformational are the least measurable’. Eyben calls for ‘a massive push back from women’s rights activists to make the space for social transformation that donor action risks shrinking’.

For more information
www.contestations.net/issues/issue-4/what-is-happening-to-donor-support-...

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Legal and fiscal developments

Following upsurge of earthquake-related giving, Japan moves to formalize easing of tax regime for NPOs

Following upsurge of earthquake-related giving, Japan moves to formalize easing of tax regime for NPOs Japan is to make life easier for NPOs by easing both their certification process and their access to preferential tax treatment. Credit Fox News Insider A bill currently making its way through the Diet transfers the responsibility for certifying NPOs for tax deduction from the National Tax Agency to local municipalities, greatly speeding up the process. A further criterion is also to be added to the so-called public support test. Currently, organizations need to get over a fifth of their income from donations to qualify for preferential tax treatment. Under the proposed legislation, organizations will become eligible if over a hundred people donate more than 3,000 yen. These changes are expected to help the estimated 43,000 NPOs in. The new law also contains provisions in the shape of tax incentives to encourage low- and middle-income donors to give to NPOs. According to an article in the International Journal for Civil Society Law newsletter, the changes follow relaxations to rules for donations for earthquake-related causes.

For more information
IJCSL Newsletter, June-July 2011

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Books and other publications

ECSP ECSP Insight
Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy

Volume 1 of a new biannual magazine, which has articles on impact measurement, accountability and the way governments and businesses can help increase volunteering.

For more information
www.ecsp.nl

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Conferences August-October 2011

9-11 August
7th Annual NC Philanthropy Conference
Association of Fundraising professionals
Durham, NC, USA
Contact www.ncphilanthropyconference.org

11-13 August
Pan-African Women's Action Summit
Pan-African Women's Philanthropy Network
Minneapolis, USA
Contact www.pawas2011.net

16-18 August
The Latin America Fundraising Festival
Brazilian Fundraisers Association/Resource Alliance
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Contact www.resource-alliance.org/conferences

29-30 August
RAP 2011 Conference - 'Building a Sustainable Social Investment Strategy for Health and Medical Research'
Research Australia Philanthropy
Sydney, Australia
Contact www.researchaustraliaphilanthropy.org

6-9 September
SOCAP 11
Social Capital Markets
San Francisco, USA
Contact www.socialcapitalmarkets.net

10-12 September
CIVICUS World Assembly - Civil Society and Global Decision-Making: Doing It Better
CIVICUS
Montreal, Canada
Contact www.civicusassembly.org

19-21 September
2011 Fall Conference for Community Foundations
Council on Foundations
San Francisco, USA
Contact www.cof.org/events/conferences

19-21 September
Challenge Social Innovation
Social Innovation Exchange
Vienna, Austria
Contact www.socialinnovationexchange/org/sixevents

21-23 September
2011 Annual Conference
Philanthropy Northwest
Missoula, Montana, USA
Contact www.philanthropynorthwest.org

21-23 September
Naples 2.0: International Social Innovation Conference
Euclid Network
Naples, Italy
Contact www.euclidnetwork.eu

22-23 September
BoardSource Leadership Forum
BoardSource
Atlanta, GA, USA
Contact www.blf2011.com

25-28 September
EGA 2011 Fall Retreat
Environmental Grantmakers Association
Jackson, WY, USA
Contact http://ega.org/events/retreat/2011/mss.php

27-28 September
SSIR Fall Conference: Partnering for Impact
Stanford Social Innovation Review's Nonprofit Management Institute
Palo Alto, CA, USA
Contact www.ssireview.org/npinstitute

2-4 October
2011 PFC conference, 'Changing philanthropy: new visions, new voices'
Philanthropic Foundations Canada
Toronto, Canada
Contact http://pfc.ca/en/programs-and-events/pfc-conferences/2011-conference/

3-5 October
ANDE Annual Conference
Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs
Ellicott City, MD, USA
Contact www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/aspen-network-development-entrepreneu...

5-6 October
Grantmakers East Forum
European Foundation Centre
Riga, Latvia
Contact www.gef.efc.be

11 October
Social Business Conference 2011
ClearlySo
London, UK
Contact www.clearlyso.com

11 October
Impact Measurement & Analysis Conference
Third Sector
London, UK
Contact www.impactmeasurementconference.com

13-15 October
SVP Conference 2011
Social Venture Partners International
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Contact www.svpi.org

17-18 October
2011 Philanthropy Midwest Conference
Philanthropy Midwest
Kansas City, USA
Contact www.philanthropymidwest.org

17-20 October
Poverty Alleviation Un-conference
Opportunity Collaboration
Ixtapa, Mexico
Contact www.opportunitycollaboration.net

18 October
ACF Conference 2011
Association of Charitable Foundations
London, UK
Contact www.acf.org.uk

18-21 October
31st International Fundraising Congress
Resource Alliance
Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands
Contact www.resource-alliance.org/ifc

19-20 October
AidEx
Centaur Exhibitions
Brussels, Belgium
Contact www.aid-expo.com

31 October-2 November
Independent Sector Annual Conference
Independent Sector
Chicago, Illinois
Contact www.independentsector.org/members/events.asp

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